University of California employees staged rallies at seven hospitals across the state Wednesday to protest the school’s planned 10-week layoff of up to 3,000 low-wage workers. An estimated 200 notices went out last week, primarily to food-service workers at UC Riverside and UC San Diego. The employees are represented by the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, Local 3299. UC officials said they are working to reassign jobs where they can, but campus shutdowns have forced their hand. AFSCME spokesman Todd Stenhouse said the number of layoffs is expected to ramp up dramatically.
“They came to the union a few weeks ago and said they think it could be as many as 3,000 layoffs statewide,” he said.
Stenhouse said the dining hall workers initially slated for layoffs make about $41,000 a year and more than 75%, or over 150 of them, are people of color.
Stenhouse said he couldn’t speculate on the ethnic breakdown of the bigger layoff, as that would involve multiple bargaining units from a variety of unions representing parking attendants, janitors, security personnel, nurses, respiratory therapists, lab technicians and graduate teaching assistants, among others...
Workers rallied at seven UC facilities Wednesday:
- UC Irvine Medical Center
- UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center
- UCLA Santa Monica Hospital
- UC San Diego Hillcrest Medical Center
- UC San Diego Jacobs Medical Center
- UC San Francisco’s Helen Diller Medical Center
- UC Davis Medical Center...
In a statement issued Wednesday, UC said it wants to keep as many employees working as possible to limit the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers. The school said it has a systemwide job protection order and is reassigning employees to other roles where possible...
Full story at https://www.pe.com/2020/06/24/uc-workers-protest-hundreds-of-low-wage-dining-worker-layoffs/
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